BETA - Project Avatar, page 15
“We were starting to think you’d forgotten,” Cecilia said. There were a lot of high-pitched voices in the background: the din of a houseful of boisterous first-graders who had been stuffing themselves with sugar.
“Almost,” she confessed. “Things have been pretty crazy.”
“Wait, here comes the birthday boy. I’ll see if I can collar him.”
A moment later, Hunter was on the line, chattering excitedly about his party and his magnificent haul of presents. Dee egged him on, relishing the moment. She hadn’t seen Cecilia’s kids since Christmas. But Hunter was in the midst of a houseful of distractions, and after a scant minute or so, he gave her a quick “Bye” and was on his way.
“And that’s what life is like around here today,” Cecilia said as she took the phone again. “Hey, where are you, anyway? I thought you were going to Nevada or something for the weekend. How did you end up . . . wherever you are?”
“It was Arizona, not Nevada.” Dee wasn’t about to ask how Cecilia had guessed that she wasn’t calling from the Southwestern Desert. Ever since they were little girls, Cecilia had had a sort of sixth sense where Dee was concerned. So she admitted, “I had to make a quick trip to Europe, as it turns out. Well, anyway, I hope it’ll be a quick one.”
Suddenly, she heard a child bawling in the background, and then muffled voices as Cecilia covered the receiver, apparently delegating someone to go deal with the crisis. Then she was back. “Europe, huh? Sounds like torture. If you’d like to trade lives for a week or so, just let me know.”
“I know it sounds like fun,” she said cautiously. “But believe me, Cee, it’s no vacation.”
The howling in the background reached a higher pitch of petulance and then faded as Cecilia moved to a more peaceful room. “Do you know that no one but you has called me ‘Cee’ since I was about seven?”
She smiled. “Actually, yes, I do know that. You make a point of telling me at least once a year.”
“Well, listen, if you’re really working so damn hard over there, I guess it was pretty sweet of you to remember Hunter’s birthday. Now, I can’t stay on the phone much longer, so let’s not beat around the bush. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
Dee grimaced. “No,” she lied. The problem with having a sister who could effectively read your mind was the perpetual invasion of privacy.
“Ooh,” Cecilia replied in a sepulchral tone. This was one of her standard gambits, intended to make Dee feel guilty for keeping secrets, with the intention of forcing her to spill her guts. Cecilia’s next move was always to change the topic, and then come back to needling Dee later in a surprise attack. She said, “Have you talked to Dad lately? I honestly think he’s losing it.”
Here was their favorite subject. Dee replied, “He lost it long before we were born.”
“He called up this morning and got Hunter on the phone, and started complaining about how his golf game is going downhill.”
“Right. He did the same thing with me last time we talked.”
“Yeah, but you’re not five years old.”
They chatted for a while, and then Cecilia made her predictable broadside.
“Okay, I’d better run,” she said. “It sounds like things are pretty bad out there. Can’t you just drop the whole thing, whatever it is, and go home?”
“No.”
“Then call me tomorrow, around this time. Promise.”
“I don’t think so, Cee. I’m going to be pretty busy.”
“You have to call me.”
Dee was wringing her hands, almost regretting that she had called. She didn’t want to say yes, and she couldn’t make any promises.
“Yes,” she said. “Okay.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
“All right, then. Enjoy France. Eat an éclair for me.”
They said good-bye and hung up, and Dee sat on the edge of the bed shaking her head. She hadn’t even said she was in France.
After a few moments of reflection, she plugged in her electronics and set them to recharge. Then she booted up her laptop and fished a nail file out of her new toiletries bag.
“Beta.”
“Hi, Karen,” Beta said. “What can I help you with?”
The little avatar was now sporting a short black hair cut. The real Dee had her own hair down around her shoulders, curled in wet auburn locks.
“I want to do whatever possible to make this place secure,” she said. “I want to make sure it’s safe for me to sleep here. Can you help me with that?”
The image on the laptop screen opened its hands in a pleasant gesture of acquiescence. It had a lot more room to spread out on this screen than it did on the smartphone, and it seemed to know just what to do with the extra pixels. Dee knew enough about programming to be a little awestruck at the quality of Endyne’s code. She made a mental note to move some of her investment money into Endyne stock.
“I am now in advisory mode,” Beta said. “Position confirmed by GPS. You are in the Hôtel Lajoux, cabin twelve. This is an unsecured location. Do not go to sleep without securing a perimeter.”
Dee arched her eyebrows but continued filing her nails. Not much that Beta could say at this point would surprise her. “Oh, I wouldn’t think of it,” she promised flippantly. “Now, what exactly does that mean?”
Beta smiled at her and pointed at a menu that now appeared beside its right hand. “Please select a term for definition and expansion.” The menu listed three choices:
ADVISORY MODE
unsecured LOCATION
securing a perimeter
Dee noticed with some consternation that she had cracked a nail, probably while fleeing the commandos in Bangalore. Most likely while clambering over the wall outside the palace. She sighed and got to work on the ragged edge with her file, hiding the damage as best she could. “Securing a perimeter,” she said.
“Place guards at all line-of-fire hubs,” Beta recommended. “If insufficient guards and/or weapons are available, establish tripwire perimeters and place beam-sensor alarm systems at all windows and doors.”
The cracked nail was quite stubborn, and it became clear that it was going to require some trimming as well as filing. She pivoted the bedside lamp over, squinted at the nail, and cursed quietly under her breath. “I’m pretty short on armed guards,” she admitted. “And I forgot my beam-sensor alarm systems, too. Any other advice?”
Beta was silent for just a moment, giving Dee the sense that she was about to be nagged for all the important stuff she had forgotten to pack. But then it said, “Utilize IRDA sweep protocol.”
“What’s that?”
Beta’s cadences went through an abrupt change and, for the first time, she heard the application go into what was obviously a prerecorded message. Still using her voice, it began explaining to her a technical process by which it was possible to override the BIOS code going to her computer’s infrared port. A lot of the explanation of the electronics in this operation went over her head, but Beta was suggesting that her computer’s infrared beam and sensor, intended for short-range communication with external devices such as printers, could be co-opted into some sort of movement detection system.
“Please confirm,” Beta said. “Should I initiate IRDA sweep protocol?”
Curious, Dee confirmed.
Beta spent the next fifteen minutes making her carry the laptop computer all over the cabin, aiming it in different directions. It finally settled on a position where the infrared beam covered the most propitious angle of windows and doors. This turned out to be achievable only by stacking two bedside tables, one on top of the other, and placing the computer on top.
She stood for a minute or so in the middle of the room, examining this strange piece of feng shui with a slow shaking of her head. “Beta,” she said, “you are becoming a very high-maintenance part of my life.”
“I don’t understand the command,” Beta replied from the speaker on the computer overhead. “Would you like to see a menu?”
Dee had little faith that this whole exercise had served any real purpose. And yet, irrational though it may have been, thirty minutes after she had set up this makeshift infrared alarm system, she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
She awoke to a persistent beeping noise overhead. It seemed to take her forever to drag her mind far enough back from sleep to identify her computer as the source of the sound.
Suddenly, she was completely awake, eyes wide and hands gripping the bed. The room was full of gentle morning light, and the woods outside were loud with birdsong. No sign of danger.
“Beta!” she whispered at the computer. It stopped beeping immediately. “Is that the alarm?”
“Good morning, Karen. The heat signature of one intruder is approaching the door. Repeat, the heat signature of one intruder is approaching the door.”
Just then, she heard a quiet rapping at the door, and an elderly voice said, “Bonjour? Je vous ai apporté le petit déjeuner.”
“What is she saying?” she whispered.
“I am bringing breakfast,” Beta translated.
Dee sagged back onto the bed, feeling her heart still racing. She thought, This can’t be a healthy way to wake up. Then she rolled up onto her feet and began making herself decent. “Coming!”
The old woman was carrying a wooden tray with a white ceramic pitcher filled with very strong coffee, a jug of hot milk, a croissant and a little bowl of homemade currant jam. She looked startled when the door opened and she saw the computer sitting on the end tables, which were still balanced one on top of the other. Then she gave an amused chuckle, as if her foreign guests were always engaged in these inexplicable antics. She handed the tray to Dee, chirped out a few pleasantries in French, and tottered away.
Dee stood holding the tray in the doorway for a long moment, stunned by the beauty of the morning. Cool rays of sunlight were slipping over the crest of the Alps, then filtering softly through the pines to dapple her body in light. The forest sounded like a convention of all the birds in the world. A squirrel with red fur and tufted ears was investigating the top of a stump fifteen feet away. It stopped occasionally and gave her a worried look through bright eyes, then went back to work.
She retreated inside, poured some coffee, and had Beta call Abe’s alert number. She was nibbling at her croissant when he returned the call on her smartphone.
His face on the screen was pale and puffy-eyed. “Do you know what time it is?”
She sipped coffee and checked her watch. “Eight-twenty,” she replied. “If you’re still in Europe.”
He rubbed his face gingerly with both hands. “In a good month,” he informed her, “I never see eight twenty in the morning. If I wanted to see eight twenty in the morning, I suppose I’d get a job.”
“Don’t you want to hear about my meeting with Brice?”
“I guess so.” The view on screen lurched around crazily while Abe moved his webcam to face the bed in his hotel room. The bed looked as if wildlife had been denning there. Then he came back on screen, falling backward onto the mattress and setting off a protest of bedsprings. He groaned and covered his eyes with his arm. “Brice, yeah. Did he have any answers?”
“No. He doesn’t think my problems have anything to do with him, and I’m inclined to agree. Frankly, I kind of wonder if he’s even really being harassed by federal agents, like he says he is. He didn’t look entirely well, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, right—who is?” Abe grumbled. “So, what are you going to do now?”
“I’m thinking of driving the R8 to Milan—it’s not very far. I told you about my contract with the Borsa Italiana last year. I always wondered if there might not have been some organized crime money behind that one, somewhere off in the shadows. In any case, Milan is beautiful this time of year and the food is magnificent.”
“Borsa Italiana—no kidding?” Abe peeped a red eye out from under his elbow for just a moment, and then buried his face again. “You never told me that. God. And to think there are people who say my career is dodgy.”
“You don’t have a career.”
“Well, there you go. A man’s hands can’t be much cleaner than that. Okay, listen. Give me another call when you get to Milan. I’m bound to be awake by then. You’re going to drive the Audi?”
“If it’s all right to take it that far.”
“Sure,” he told her. “But I’m trusting you. Don’t get a single scratch on that car. Do you know how much that thing costs?”
“I have no idea.”
“Right. That means you can’t afford it.”
“Don’t worry, I’m a very careful driver.”
Abe suddenly seemed to remember some important news. “Ha! I nearly forgot—we checked out the comms from your smartphone and I’m right,” he said smugly.
Dee waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t she prompted him: “Right about what exactly?”
“The avatar has been accessing military data feeds of some sort. So I was right: either Endyne is a military contractor or,” he held the pause for effect. “Ed is a spy.”
Dee sighed. “Ed is not a spy,” she said.
“Okay, well, how do you explain the military feeds, then?”
“I don’t know; it must be part of the Endyne software,” she said.
“And it is trying to send some encrypted message to an IP address that we’ve never seen before. We’re quarantining the message and trying to decode it, but that will take a while. I have to tell you . . . I’m a bit worried; I think you might need some backup.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I’ll be fine. By the way, I also have some information about UMBRA.”
She went on to tell Abe what Beta had said about an operation called 'Hydra'. He immediately sent off an e-mail to one of his Substructure researchers to look into it, but since Operation Hydra was highly classified, he had no idea how long it would take to discover what it was about.
That taken care of, he paused to think. “You’re telling me Beta found all this information for you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Weird,” he muttered.
“By the way, why do you suppose Brice has such a hysterical loathing of XCorp?”
Abe struggled up far enough to prop himself on his elbows and look at the camera. “XCorp . . . don’t tell me you’ve also been working for XCorp?”
“No, I haven’t, why?”
“A few years ago they were involved in some serious bribery and corruption scandals, but those seem to have blown over. I’m not certain what they’ve been up to recently.”
“Brice seems to think they’re the minions of Satan on earth. Why is that?”
He said, “Hmm. You got me. But I know a couple of people there in Geneva who’ve done work in the electronics industry. Most of them are working at the LHC. Want me to hook you up with one? There’s a guy, Ramsey, who knows all the industry scuttlebutt.”
Dee thought about it for a moment. She had been looking forward to jumping into the Audi, speeding over the Alps in the gorgeous springtime weather, and parking it in Milan in time for dinner in the Navigli. But she had to admit, the trail here in Geneva might not be entirely cold.
“All right, thanks,” she said. “But, Abe? Could you please arrange the meeting before you go back to sleep? If this Ramsey can’t meet me today, I’d just as soon get on the road.”
“Sure, yeah,” he grumbled, already reaching for his keyboard to hang up. “Check the dead drop in a little while. Meanwhile, try to keep a low profile, okay? I’m really worried about you, so please be careful.”
They signed off, and she finished breakfast. Then she took a long shower and got out her kit of duty-free makeup. If she was sticking around long enough to meet this Ramsey person, she would have a few idle hours to herself for the first time in days. She was debating whether to spend them in the countryside or in town, or maybe a little of each. She reflected on the strange communications that Abe had described: military data feeds and encrypted messages. Maybe Beta could explain. She started formulating questions in her head. She had just finished putting on her wig when the computer, still perched high up on the end tables, began to ring again.
“What is it, Beta?” she whispered, adding a little blush in the mirror.
“The heat signature of one intruder has been identified outside the west window. Movement patterns indicate intentional stealth, with seventy-four percent certainty.”
Dee put down the makeup. Maybe it was just a deer or something. But not likely. She looked over at the curtained window. “What should I do?”
“I am now in advisory mode. Your current position has insufficient routes of exit for tactical engagement. Confront the intruder rapidly but with caution. Ready your arms and exit through the front door immediately.”
Ready my arms? She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. She scanned the room for a place to hide, but the best she could come up with was the space under the bed.
“Beta,” she whispered, “I’m not armed.”
“Intruder is now directly outside the west window. Acquire a sharp and/or heavy object, and exit through the front door immediately.”
She glanced around in a rising panic. The cottage was not well stocked with sharp or heavy objects. She grabbed the wicker trash basket but felt so ridiculous, she put it back down. Then she grabbed a small glass bottle of Dior perfume from the vanity, gripping it by the neck like a bar fighter with a tiny beer bottle, and quietly opened the front door.
Sticking close to the wall, she eased to the corner of the building and peeked around.
John Henley-Wright was standing beside the Audi, hands folded meditatively behind his back. He was leaning beside the car to peer through the driver’s-side window at the dashboard and seemed quite engrossed. He was wearing a breezy suit in cream linen and looked as if he were just heading out for a Sunday drive.
She must have made a sound, because he turned around and looked straight at her. He gave her a big cheerful smile.
